NFL Picks Week 16

The last time Dec. 26 fell on a Sunday was 2004, when Vinny Testaverde, A.J. Feeley and Brian Griese were still professional quarterbacks. That means we’ve gone five full NFL seasons without the optimal holiday schedule of football. And I don’t mean optimal in the sense that it provides the most thrilling action—I’m pretty confident no football game will top a certain one from Week 15. But optimal like waking up at 11 a.m. on New Year’s Day and watching 12 straight hours of bowl games is optimal or, better yet, optimal like powering through three NFL games while stuffing your face with turkey, yams and sweet potato pie is very, very optimal. There’s no better late-December schedule than when Christmas falls on a Saturday, because, even for the non-religious among us, the holiday is followed by the typical slate of Sunday football. Every several years, a Christmas miracles are guaranteed.

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Football.

This weekend pairing, of course, is one of seven potential Christmas-NFL pairings. Christmas could fall on Monday, but by the time “60 Minutes” is delayed for the end of the 4:15 p.m. game on CBS, Christmas Eve festivities are well underway. Tuesday’s all right, but not for fans of teams playing on Monday night. Wednesday? Nobody wants Christmas on Wednesday. Thursday means there’s too much distance between Christmas and the NFL week when the playoff picture becomes clear. Friday gives you the awkwardness of that open Saturday. It would be most problematic if Christmas were on Sunday, obviously. This year, though, the timing is wonderfully convenient (especially for this substitute Fixer, who plans to eat lo mein and see “The King’s Speech” on Saturday). Christmas on Saturday and late-season NFL on Sunday, with the best game of the week reserved for Monday night: It really is the most wonderful time of the year.

It’s about time we saw a line like this. Just last year, teams like the Patriots and Saints were double-digit favorites seemingly every week. But this year’s picks have been notably more cautious. Last week, Atlanta – which is arguably the NFL’s best team – was favored by less than a touchdown on the road against the very-much-not-the-best Seattle Seahawks. Finally, here, we have a pairing of teams egregiously mismatched enough to break that trend. The Panthers are scoring a NFL-low 13.1 points per game, which is four points fewer than the league’s second-worst offense. The Steelers, on the other hand, are allowing just 15.7 points per game, the lowest mark in the NFL. That Pittsburgh hasn’t necessarily been a lock to score 15 points in a given game this season is cause for (brief) pause, but six of Carolina’s 12 losses have come by 15 points or more. The Steelers are capable of winning by this much, the Panthers are certainly capable of losing by this much. That means that this great big line may actually be just big enough (the risks of big NFL lines notwithstanding). – DR

If you’ll permit me, I’m going to just pretend temporarily that this Week 16 matchup pitted slightly earlier iterations of these teams against each other. Hello there, Wade Phillips! And Kurt Warner, you sure do look resplendent in that scarlet. Don’t worry, Tony Romo: Your next season won’t end with a fractured collarbone while your 1-4 team loses to Giants at home on Monday night, or anything. But enough of that! You can’t repeat the past, wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald, who died 70 years ago this week, which is why these two teams must beat on, boats very much against the current. Arizona and Dallas both won their divisions last year. Both have completed that unfortunate dive from first to worst. That brings us to this Saturday night, where Dallas sets out to prove that it’s not as bad as its record, and Arizona tries to give the Christmas carolers in the stands something to sing about. The guess here is they will. — BC

Well, nothing gets an NFL purist’s blood flowing quite like a late December game between the Lions and Dolphins, am I right? In terms of wins and losses, Miami is better than Detroit. But the Lions, for once, might be the better team in this late-season matchup. Consider this: Detroit has scored 308 points and given up 329, compared to Miami’s 239 points for and 261 points against. The Dolphins’ differential is slightly better, but not so much better that these two teams should be separated by three wins. Plus, the Lions have won two in a row behind quarterback Drew Stanton, who may or may not start for the fourth straight week. Here’s a hint for Lions coach Jim Schwartz: When it’s Christmas, your team is 4-10, you have a quarterback who’s won two straight andthat man can Dougie, too? That’s a no-brainer. I’m banking on Schwartz coming to the same conclusion and for Stanton and Co. to, say, find a beat that’s super bumpin’. – BC

Raise your hand if you predicted Rex Grossman would throw four touchdowns last week. OK, you can put your hands down, because you’re just lying. Now, raise your hand if you predicted the Redskins would manage to lose in some cruel way, like, say, wasting a four-touchdown day from Rex Grossman. Yes, of course: That’s more like it. If you’re a Redskins fan and you’ve managed to erase Sunday’s 33-30 loss from your battered memory, here’s a reminder that the Redskins lost, 33-30, last week, and they managed to do so even with Rex Grossman, their improbable quarterback, throwing a career-high four touchdowns. Got all that? When the history of the Redskins is written, I think that will pretty much sum up the essence of the last few years. (I also think that it won’t be a bestseller.) Meanwhile, at 8-6, Jacksonville is still technically in the playoff chase, though the Jaguars will need some help to extend their season. Against these Redskins, they should be able to help themselves. And if they can’t? Then they don’t deserve to play past Week 17 anyway. — BC

San Francisco 49ers at St. Louis Rams (-2)
DR: St. Louis; ND: San Francisco; BC: St. Louis

In the NFC, as always, six teams will make the playoffs. Five of them will be very good. Then there will be the representative from the NFC West. So, consider Weeks 16 and 17 a de facto round robin to determine which NFC West team will promptly lose to a team like the Saints in the wild-card round of the playoffs. It’s like the actual playoffs! (It’s not really like the actual playoffs, because the football in the actual playoffs is usually pretty good.) All of which is to say that one team will, in fact, win the NFC West, and this game will go a long way in deciding which one it is. The Rams are 6-8 and have surrendered 37 more points than they’ve scored. They’ve also lost two in a row, and their last three wins are against Arizona, Denver and Carolina. San Francisco, on the other hand, is 5-9 and its point differential is even worse. Plus, the 49ers are 1-6 on the road, and that one win came against—you guessed it—the Cardinals, who have made the rest of their division look quite good, thanks very much. The fact that St. Louis is 4-3 at home is a good enough reason to ride the Rams all the way to the—gulp—postseason? – BC

These two teams don’t initially seem to have much in common. Their records are nearly mirror images of each other, and the Patriots’ NFL-best 31.9 points per game average is in a different area code than Buffalo’s 19.5 points per game average. But, in a sense that should give some comfort to fans of both teams, both the Patriots and Bills seem to be teams performing at the height of their abilities at present. Of course, as reflects the discrepancies in talent between the two, New England is a lot further up the ladder (and standings) than Buffalo – the Pats are arguably the NFL’s best team, while the Bills are merely one that has been slightly less bad than expected over the second half. That doesn’t mean Buffalo will be able to win this one, or even cover, but it’s something. Buffalo’s in-context fulfillment is enough to provide some hope for next year as a long season winds down, at the very least, and more than many NFL teams can boast at this time of year. – DR

BONUS PRO-PATS LOVE: I’m pretty sure Belichick will only allow his players to acknowledge the existence of Christmas if they pound the Bills into the shape of a ham. Then, the coach will reward himself with three bites of a Swanson and get a good night’s sleep of 45 minutes. Merry Christmas to all! — BC

For all the bone-rattling hits, shanked field goals and, well, 65-yard punt returns with time expired, football can actually be a pretty simple game. Perhaps this is cliche at best, or untrue at worst, but sometimes, one team simply has more to play for than another team. That’s particularly true this late in the season, and it’s particularly true in Cleveland this weekend, when the 5-9 Browns host the 10-4 Ravens, in hunt of a playoff berth and a division title. It’s worth mentioning, too, that Baltimore has won two in a row and four out of five, while Cleveland has lost two straight itself. Plus, it’s not like the Browns’ 2-6 home record is anything to, um, write home about. The last time these teams played, in September, the Browns managed to corral Ray Rice, but Joe Flacco instead went off for three passing touchdowns. Maybe I’ve seen too many romantic comedies lately, but at this point, the plot twist is never not a cliche: Ravens win, and big. — BC

Surely you’ve been following the fascinating triumphs and travails of the Tennessee Titans, so you don’t need a primer from this haphazard rubber-necker. The Titans are a team that lost six in a row, a span that stretched from October to December. Yet they somehow have a point differential of plus-40, which shines in comparison to Jacksonville’s minus-46. Why Jacksonville? Well, the Jaguars are 8-6 and two games up on them in the AFC South. Except for the 7-7 Raiders, every other team in the NFL with a positive point differential has a winning record, and even Oakland’s point differential isn’t as good as Tennessee’s. None of which will really matter this weekend in Kansas City, where the Chiefs—and their plus-41 point differential and nine wins—haven’t lost this season. I don’t think the Titans will be the team to break that streak, but the Chiefs also won’t make the Titans’ point differential look much worse, either. — BC

The Tim Tebow Era is upon us. It looks very similar to the Tyler Thigpen and Joe Webb Eras—a young quarterback on a not-so-good team with some running ability. Here’s the major difference: Webb and Thigpen were not Heisman winners and didn’t have a jersey that led all others in sales before they handled a professional snap. Regardless, the offense in Denver actually showed a little spark last week with Tebow under center, even though they were spanked by the Raiders, 39-23. Denver should be a team in disarray, with an interim coach and a 3-11 record, but by starting Tebow, they’ve thrown caution to the wind, a move that invites unpredictability. And this is why they might have a decent chance to win this weekend against the otherwise-superior Texans. – ND

New York Jets at Chicago Bears (-1)
DR: New York Jets; ND: Chicago; BC: New York Jets

There were a lot of things to consider in Chicago’s beatdown of Minnesota in the snow on Monday: there was the weather, the field, the surprise start of Brett Favre and the last-second deactivation of Adrian Peterson. With all those distractions, the Bears still grabbed hold of that game and asserted themselves as a serious contender in the NFC. You have to look at Jay Cutler’s 194 passing yards and three touchdowns in context; had the game not been played in sub-zero wind chills, those numbers could have been much higher. The Jets, meanwhile, seemed to have gotten their season back on track last week, but couldn’t have picked a less opportune time to meet a Chicago team that has won six of their last seven. – ND

It’s pretty well-known that the Colts have to essentially win the rest of their games to make the playoffs, but people tend to overlook the fact that the team has battled injuries to wide receivers and running backs all season long. In other words, there’s a reason they’ve lost an uncharacteristic six times. Oakland, at 7-7, has had an erratic season, but there’s something in the way they’ve played lately that’s inspired a little confidence. Maybe Indianapolis will show some killer instinct, but, at the end of the day, they’ve been just one game better than the Raiders this year. We’re not talking the 11-3 Colts of yesteryear against the downtrodden 2-12 Raiders. This game may be a lot closer than people expect, and if Indianapolis doesn’t come ready to play, they could lose here and miss the playoffs. – ND

Come Monday, I may look like a fool for wondering this aloud, but how does a team without Terrell Owens and only half of Chad Ochocinco remain a barely-touchdown underdog to the surging Chargers, who have been outscored over this season by just two teams (the Patriots and the Eagles)? Now that the Bengals have snapped their losing streak, they have very little to play for. The Chargers, meanwhile, are one game out in the AFC West, their only path to the playoffs. For the Chargers to get in, they’re going to have to keep winning, and those chances went way up after Vincent Jackson scored three touchdowns last week, proving that he can play a major role in the offense despite missing most of the season. Want to root for the underdog in this game? Look to the Chargers, a hard-luck team that is much better than their 8-6 record would indicate. – ND

A win by Tampa Bay here inches them closer to a wild card berth. A win by Seattle assures them at least a tie of the NFC West lead going into the final week. Is there a team that wants it more? Probably. Is there a way to tell which it is, based on this season’s results? Not at all. Seattle has lost two of their last three games in these essentially “must-win” situations. We’ll give them a pass on their loss to Atlanta, but they were blown out by the 49ers in a Week 14 game that they could easily have won. Tampa Bay countered by losing to Detroit last week. This probably isn’t going to be the prettiest of games, and it could go either way, but I think Tampa Bay will eventually prove to be the better team, just not by six points. – ND

New York Giants at Green Bay Packers (-3)
DR: New York Giants; ND: New York Giants; BC: New York Giants

In many ways, Tom Coughlin is like Santa Claus to Giants fans. If you believe in him this weekend, good things will come to you. If you don’t, you may be left with very little under your tree … after you kick and destroy all your presents in a rage over New York’s continued second-half slide. Coughlin came under a great deal of fire for dressing down punter Matt Dodge on the field after he shanked the punt that led to the DeSean Jackson return last week, but he didn’t release Dodge and replace him with a roaming veteran unsigned free agent. He stuck with him. The fact that he did this shows one of two things: First, he probably sees more talent in Dodge than most observers, who get to watch him punt about five times a week. More importantly, Coughlin is sending his team a message that it wasn’t Dodge who lost the game, it was everyone else. This isn’t a must-win game for the Giants (if they lose, they still are mathematically in the playoff hunt), but it may end up being the most important game they play all season. – ND

Minnesota has had a tough couple weeks, and while it’s not fair to say that all of their misfortunes are to blame on the snow and constant moving and rescheduling of games, it probably played a factor in their lackluster performances. But I think there’s a little fight left in the Vikings, and if Adrian Peterson, who has ankle, knee and thigh injuries, decides to put the team on his back and play through the pain in the last two meaningless games, the team could find themselves getting fired up against an Eagles team that, while brilliant lately, does have some vulnerabilities. Throw Joe Webb into the mix with an overlooked but talented couple receivers, and this game could end up being decided by less than one touchdown. – ND

A great deal has been made about how good the Falcons are at home (undefeated this season; one loss all-time with Matt Ryan as quarterback), which is why the entire world may be going with the Falcons here. But consider this: The Falcons have very little to gain by going all-out against the Saints (outside of backing up Roddy White’s tweets). They need just one win to wrap up home-field advantage in the NFC, and they face Carolina in Week 17. So it makes sense for them to take it easy, play conservatively, keep their stars healthy and not give away too much of their game plan to the Saints, who they’ll most likely meet again in the playoffs. If circumstances were a little different, then I might go with the Falcons, but it makes more sense for the Saints to come out swinging in this game and Atlanta to just put their arms up and absorb the blows. – ND

Comments (2 of 2)

The Saints are healthy once again. Being at full health, they are very dangerous offensively. Their defense has also played good ball at times this year. They are playing against a team that has had every break go their way this year ( fumble recovery against SF, when the 49er intercepter should have fallen down rather than try for a TD, missed short FG attempt in OT for Saints, etc.). Saints need it more than falcons, since atlanta only needs one win to secure home field in playoffs and plays the horrible panthers in final game. Saints 35 falcons 17.

5:19 pm December 24, 2010

Go_Iggles wrote:

Last week was the real feast. This week is just some left-overs and a decent slice of pie.

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